


Bubba Shot the Juke Box

by likeadeuce



Category: Angel: the Series
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-15
Updated: 2010-02-15
Packaged: 2017-10-07 07:19:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/62755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/likeadeuce/pseuds/likeadeuce
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Season 5, after the episode "Time Bomb."  Behind the scenes at Wolfram & Hart</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bubba Shot the Juke Box

_Bubba shot the juke box last night_  
Said it played a sad song it made him cry  
Went to his truck and got a forty five  
Bubba shot the juke box last night   
\-- Marc Chesnutt

 

Gunn shrugged into a hooded sweatshirt and put his hand on the door marked "containment." A shape darted by him at superhuman speed, and suddenly a slender figure blocked his entrance.

"Don't go in there!" Harmony gasped -- clearly for effect, since she didn't need to breathe.

"I can handle Illyria." Gunn tried to maneuver past the vampire, but she grabbed his arm.

"Mr. Gunn! It's not just Illyria in there!" Then Harmony, with the most dramatic expression in her repertoire – it reminded him of Tori Spelling in a TV movie, much scarier than her vamp-face – stage-whispered. "It's! Wesley!"

"I can handle Wesley." Gunn ducked under her arm, really quite a feat with his height, and moved through into the chilly hallway leading to  
containment.

"Right but. . ." She hurried after Gunn and grabbed his sleeve. Almost apologetically, she said, "Remember how he stabbed you?"

Gunn's gut tightened, and he felt the searing wound all over. "A little bit," he mumbled. "We talked, I think we're cool." _And if that ain't so. . .well, I guess I'll find out. _

"You haven't seen him today," said Harmony. "He's been in there like twelve hours. And Angel sent me down to check if he's got enough tea in his thermos, or whatever, and you know that crazy song?" Before Gunn could attempt to decipher the comment, she started to hum – or rather, butcher -- a few bars of Patsy Cline. Gunn nodded and held up a hand to let her know he got the idea. "Well, old blue-in-the-face was napping or powering down or whatever he-she-it does, and Wes had on the radio and that song came on. And he said everything was fine and I turned to go and when I was headed out, I heard this bang and I looked back and the speaker was _destroyed_."

"So what?" Gunn shrugged. "Fred liked that song, it reminded him, he broke the radio. I've smashed a few in my time. And that was just because they kept playing Justin Timberlake on the R&amp;B station."

"Smash it? Gunn, he didn't smash it. He _shot_ it. With a gun." She narrowed her eyes. "What's wrong with Justin?"

"Not a thing." Gunn stopped at the reinforced door to the inner chambers and began to key in his passcode. "You should call him. I think Lorne has his digits."

"Don't try to distract me. You're going into an isolated room with an armed man who already tried to kill you."

"Hey, that's me." The door swung open. "Not just a fake lawyer, a fake lawyer on the edge."

Gunn didn't look back at Harmony, but he swore he could hear the eyeroll when she said, "It's your funeral." As the door swung shut, her voice trailed after him. "And don't expect me to find a caterer!"

*

Charles Gunn had never thought of himself as a man who had epiphanies. He was, after all, the muscle, the dependable sidekick type. Even when they brought him here and pumped up his brain, it turned out that a legal brain was just muscle by other means. Epiphanies were for the brilliant unpredictable ones, the chosen, the champions. But that day, a month before, in the bionics lab, Gunn looked into the ice blue eyes of his former best friend, the man who was driving a knife into the hard flesh of his stomach, when a realization hit him.

He had known it would end like this. Ever since Alonna, somewhere in the recesses of his mind, Gunn had always believed that he would die at the hands of someone who used to love him. It only seemed to fit.

But Gunn hadn't died. Of course, that just gave him the uneasy feeling that Wesley hadn't really meant to kill him. At least, not yet. . . Now, as Gunn stepped into the observation room , a bit from an old late-night movie flashed through his mind. A girl, fatal _noir_ damsel type, asks the rugged American hero: _How come you haven't killed me yet?_ Hero grunts, indifferent, _There's time._

Wesley stood, staring ahead, back and shoulders so straight it looked painful. Especially when Gunn realized he probably hadn't moved for hours. Gunn's eyes scanned the room and he saw, as Harmony had said, the shattered remains of a portable radio in one corner. A first look at Wesley showed no sign of a gun, but then, Gunn knew it would be concealed, in this cold room, under his leather coat.

At Gunn's first footstep, Wesley's head tilted. Without looking, he raised a hand. "Quiet. Sleeping." The voice carried so little affect that Gunn could almost believe Wesley was referring to himself. But Wesley was staring raptly through the observation window to the whitewalled cell, where a small leather-clad figure lay curled on the floor. _Small,_ Gunn thought. _Teensy-weensy and in charge._ He could put his hands around her waist, and his fingers would meet in the middle. He could lift her from the ground and turn and her upside down. He could lie on his back, while she slid on top, and her body was barely a weight.

Gunn stepped toward the glass. "Does –" He hesitated. 'She' didn't work, but he couldn't bring himself to say 'it' – "Does Illyria sleep?"

"Not as such." Wesley continued with his somnambulant tone. "But after the energy drain she recently experienced, Illyria may be looking for ways to conserve power. Or she may simply want to experience sleep. Perhaps as a conduit to accessing human emotion and memory." Gunn's head turned sharply at those words, and Wesley slipped into the tone that had sometimes put him at serious risk for strangulation, even back in the good old days. "Oh yes, the sleep function plays a vital and as yet, remarkably little-understood role in maintaining the psychic integrity –"

"Wes, what the fuck --?" Gunn shook his head. "You know I don't care about that. I want to know – can she? Can it?"

"Dream?" Wesley raised a hand to his day's growth of beard, and made a show of stroking it. For the first time since Gunn had entered the room, he turned and began to pace. "Perchance to dream. . .aye, there's the rub. . .life is a dream, and a dream is but a dream. . .do androids dream of electric sheep?"

"Remember!" Gunn spoke sharply.

Wes turned, and the smallest hint of a smile flicked on his face. "Interesting choice of words." Then Wesley stopped pacing and swung back into position, resuming his stone vigil like a soldier returning to post.

He didn't speak again, and Gunn had to attack with a question. "Does she remember? Does she feel? Does she. . .?"

"It's not her," Wes answered. Then he fell silent, as though that response encompassed anything Gunn could have asked. And Gunn supposed it did. But then, just when he assumed all conversation was over, Wes went on. "Of course, memories. What we are, what we were. They make us. Make us or mar us. Mostly mar. Mine at least. Now yours –" And that faintest hint of a superior smile paid a moment's visit. The slight mind-nagging I-know-something-you-don't-know, but what could Wesley think he knew? Nothing, except that he had been closer to Illyria. While Gunn was busy recovering from his knife wounds, hanging out in hell. Curiosity overcame him and Gunn moved toward the glass.

"Don't get too close," Wesley barked, and of course it was nonsensical, there was a barrier. The warning couldn't be anything more than instinct.

But it got to Gunn, for reasons he didn't have time to think about, and he whirled back at Wes. "Or what? You're going to stab me again?"

In the old days, he might have expected Wesley to step off. But those were very old days. Wes didn't blink, only said with great deliberation. "That depends. Are you planning to kill Fred again?"

Again, the words stabbed into Gunn's scarred-over wound, but he didn't reply, didn't turn, didn't even look at Wesley. No reason to add fuel to the fire, and besides – it wasn't Wes he had come to see. Gunn stepped forward and leaned against the observation glass.

The body lay curled up, almost fetal – as though she were not only recapturing conscious memory, but regressing as far as she could imagine. He almost expected the aging process to reverse before his eyes, but as he got closer it was just Fred's face. Fred's body, in a ridiculous costume, and he could almost deceive himself that she was a girl playing dressup. But then there were Wesley's words -- _It's not her_ \-- and if anyone would know. . .

"Honestly, Charles, that was very unfair." The voice sounded close to his ear. Gunn idly wondered how many seconds it would take Wesley to unholster the Glock and drive a bullet into his brain – he could see the whole process, step by step, and only after he had run through it a few times did he wonder why his fight-or-flight instincts hadn't kicked in. Maybe it was the paralysis that kept him safe, because as long as Gunn didn't move, Wesley stayed as frozen as his shadow. It was Wes who finally spoke again. His calm tone dissolved, and his tone sounded almost peevish. "You're just going to let me get away with that? You didn't kill her, Charles. That was very unfair of me."

"I don't hear a thing you say anymore, man." Gunn couldn't stand it anymore, broke out of position, and swung over to the desk chair by the broken radio. He straddled the seat, backwards, and propped his head on his fists. He looked up at Wesley and, for the first time since that knife drove into his gut, their eyes met. "You think you act crazy enough, you get to say whatever you want. Except maybe you keep one guy around, knows the truth, calls you on your bullshit. Is that the plan? Well, I ain't your guy."

"Plan?" Wesley blinked in surprise. "Ahh, yes." He looked at the ceiling and started to "Doubt thou the stars are fire. . .doubt that the sun doth move. . .lug the guts into the neighbor room. . .get thee to a nunnery and. . ." His gaze snapped back to Charles "When the wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a handbag."

"Saw," Gunn said, instinctively. "Handsaw."

Wes nodded approval. "Brain enhancements? Complete Works?"

"_Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead._ Movie version."

They said the next sentence together. "Fred liked it."

Silence hung in the air for a moment, and then Gunn nodded at the glass. "It's her birthday."

"I remember," Wes said sharply. Then the manic smile broke across his lips again, and suddenly he was shaking with laughter. Gunn stared at him, wondering what the joke could be. Wes came over and placed a hand on the back of the desk chair. Leaning close to Gunn's ear, he began to speak. "I was going to say. . ." Then he doubled over, stepped back, and slumped onto the floor.

"Wesley . . ." Gunn leaned down, reached out, and without planning it, touched the top of Wesley's head. "Wes, man, you need to take a break?"

Wes looked up at him with wide eyes. "No," he said. "No, Charles, I was only going to say –" Another wave of laughter threatened to grip him, and Gunn slid his hand down to Wesley's shoulder. Wes seemed to collect himself for a moment. "I didn't get her anything."

"Hey." Gunn, absurdly, felt himself smile. "I guess it's enough that we both remembered."

At this remark, though, Wesley became serious again, nodding for a moment before he said. "Aye, thou poor ghost. While memory holds a seat in this distracted globe. . ." He looked up at Gunn, and slapped the hand that rested on his shoulder. It sort of felt playful, and it sort of felt like a slap. "Overrated."

Hadn't Gunn just sworn he wasn't going to get sucked in to trying to decipher Wesley's crazy bullshit? Yet he found himself asking, "Birthday presents?"

"No no." Wes shook his head, and enunciated the next word. "Memory." He nodded at Fred's sleeping body; a body that wasn't sleeping, a body that wasn't Fred. "You remember her. What she was."

Gunn swallowed, and he knew he could say it now. Because it couldn't matter, and so it was the only thing that mattered. "I loved her, too, Wes."

Wes patted Gunn's hand and nodded vigorously. "Good. Good good good good good. You haven't forgotten that much."

Now Gunn jerked his hand away. "I couldn't exactly forget that."

"Ohhh. . ." Wes soothed. "Honestly, Charles you'd be surprised." His head started to sway again, back in reciting mode, "The way she wears her _hat_, the way she sips her _tea_, the memory of all _that_. . .Don't listen to the spin doctors, and don't let them fool you, Charles, it's all spin." Gunn stood and started to play with the fragments of the radio, letting Wes ramble on at an ever-quickening pace. "The Shakespeares, the Patsy Clines, the George Bloody Gershwins. They _can_ take that away from you. And it's the first fucking thing they _will_ take, and here's the thing – " His voice had a new urgency that made Gunn take notice, and turn to Wes. "You find out, Charles. You find out what they did, and you're not even sure that you're sorry. You find the memories, you wish you can give them back, but you _can't_, you _have_ them, no one _asked_ you."

Fingering the powder burn on a fragment of plastic, Gunn shook his head, but he spoke gently. "I can't follow you, man." He tried a smile. "You're too deep for me."

"I've signed a lot of papers, Charles," said Wes. "Since we came here. Ink to parchment, people die. We don't always know who. You held the pen that broke the bridge. Could have been me. Could have been Angel." He laughed. "Hell, could have been Fred. I shouldn't have stabbed you. It was shabby. What do you remember?"

Gunn took a long look through the glass, at the room where the sleeping girl-god lay. "Well, for one thing, I don't think she ever wore a hat. Or sipped tea."

Wes nodded, and spoke solemnly, as though it was the most important thing he had said all day, "She was a Dr. Pepper kind of girl. I kissed her once, and she tasted like it. I don't know what's in that vile concoction, but sometimes she tasted like it, and now it tastes like her."

Gunn nodded. "I remember."

"That's not the issue," Wesley snapped. "Why are we here?"

"On earth? In this room?"

"This room, this place." Wesley spread his arms in a gesture, encompassing all of Wolfram and Hart. "Why did we come here? Why did you? Why did I? What do you remember?"

"I don't know about you. I thought it had something to do with Lilah. Maybe Fred, too. I think she was going to take the bait, I don't think you would've let her get away. Or Angel. What were you going to do with yourself? The rogue thing was never really your style." Gunn shrugged. "Me? I guess I always sort of wanted to work for Wolfram and Hart. Was pretty much gonna take the deal no matter what anybody said. It's hard to believe now." Something about the last comment made Wes sit up and take notice. "What?" Gunn asked.

"You were, weren't you? The rest of us, we had some questions. I was about half and half myself. Fred would need at least one of us, I think, and Angel –" Wesley shook his head. "But you were on board from the first. You didn't need any persuasion."

"All right, don't rub it in."

"No no no," Wes shook his head. "You don't understand. That makes things easier. Choices. Consequences. Revelations. Things happened, Charles. While you were gone, you missed things but -- What did who know, and when did they know it? In the end, what does it matter?" He stood, abruptly, and walked back to the glass. "Maybe we should get her a gift."

Gunn glanced down at the shards on the table. He had been completely lost by Wesley's monologue, and the question at least gave him something to grab onto. "Like a new radio?"

Wesley glanced over. "Oh yes," he mumbled. "That. I was playing some music for – Illyria's benefit. It got to be too much."

Gunn grinned and whistled a bar of a country song Fred had liked, then sang, "Bubba ain't never been accused of being mentally stable."

For a second, a look of surprise took over Wesley's face. Then the half-manic smile came again, but this time it stayed. "Reckless, Hell," he said. "I shot just where I was aiming."


End file.
